The gloves come off re: class warfare

By Dan Brooks in Class Warfare 6 Comments

Rep. Paul Ryan (R–WI,) still perched on the line between good-looking and evil-looking

For the last several months it’s been showing up in Facebook comments and Boehner aides, but you almost never heard it from an actual congressman’s actual mouth until this weekend: class warfare. That’s what the Republican Party is calling Obama’s new jobs/deficit plan, with terrifying synchronization. “Class warfare may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics,” Paul Ryan said on Fox News this weekend. “We don’t need a system that seeks to prey on people’s fear, envy and anxiety.” You can tell the GOP is scared about this, because Paul Ryan is talking. He’s the guy they get to tell the American people stuff we won’t want to hear, and they picked him the same way a carload of drunk frat boys decides who’s going to go knock on the door after they run over a dog. He’s handsome, at least by GOP standards. That’s good, because in this analogy, about 65% of America is the dog.

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Great year for dead billionaires, trouble for us

By Dan Brooks in inevitability of death 2 Comments

Nelson Rockefeller addresses himself to student demonstrators in 1970.

Hey, remember the estate tax? That bogeyman of the Bush years—the injustice enshrined in the federal tax code that robs hard-working Americans of their right to establish multi-generational dynasties as the Founders intended? The death tax? It’s possible you’ve forgotten it because it only applies to estates valued above $3.5 million dollars, and like most Americans you only stand to inherit, like, $3.2 mil. Then again, maybe you forgot it because it doesn’t apply this year.

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The Senator from K-Y: Jim Bunning effs America right in the A

By Dan Brooks in Politics versus Government, Uncategorized 3 Comments

Bunning describes to his grandchildren the opportunity to serve his country that got away.

Senator Jim Bunning (R–KY, net worth $607,000*) continued his objection to a 30-day extension in federal unemployment benefits and highway funding reimbursements today, after successfully stopping the bill on a point of parliamentary procedure Thursday. Yesterday morning, two thousand federal transportation workers were furloughed without pay, thanks to Bunning’s insistence that a specific funding source be identified for the $10 billion bill and, presumably, the rest of the $3.8 trillion federal budget. On a more personal level, my father had his last day of work on Monday, having opted not to retire on Friday so that he would be eligible for COBRA health insurance through the end of March. That program, too, has been suspended, and now my father does not have health insurance because a Hall of Fame pitcher from Kentucky has taken it upon himself to end the welfare state. Bunning repeatedly affirmed his objection even as Democratic senators pointed out unemployment numbers in Kentucky, expressed their dismay at being kept up late, and generally employed the means by which an old man is made to feel shame. While Bunning was overheard swearing and complaining that he’d been “ambushed,” he held to his resolve, and the bill could not come to a vote. Which brings us to where we are now.

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